I’m a level 42 Cryomancer/Psycokino and there are choices in skills I’ve regretted and things I’ve discovered. I wish to share with you all some of those things.
First off, if you plan on going away from Wizard, Energy becomes a rather pathetic spell. Level 5 Energy Bolt and Level 1 Ice Bolt often did comparable damage thanks to the ice and stab bonuses. I didn’t grab Quake, but I wish I had. Even if you can only use it once, it probably at least does comparable damage and as a bonus has the Earth element. If you plan on going Wizard 3 or W2>Linker, then Energy Bolt may be worth it. Those or probably the only instances where Sleep is worth it, but I haven’t really gone testing Sleep that much.
Reflect Shield has been a godsend. In my opinion this is the best Wizard skill, out of the initial 5. Not only will it prevent damage, but it will also let you cast uninterrupted during spells that you can’t move on. This will be useful even at later classes. Level 4 last about the duration of the cooldown. I would personally aim for level 5, but I happen to have level 4 and it serves me quite well.
Lethargy is a skill I don’t use but maxed out for some reason. Looking at the traits for it, it sounds like a great ability when used to its full potential.
Moving on to Cryomancer.
Ice Pike is the skill to get. If you hit something up close it will one shot most enemies near your level, and deal major damage to bosses. Ice Bolt is almost entirely inferior, while still better than Energy Bolt.
I have not yet found a good use for Ice Wall. No matter what I try, I look at the instance immediately and think “I just wasted my SP…”. It’s a skill that sounds good in theory but seems to be rarely useful in practice. If you can not only find a good strategy, but also properly implement one, I’d like to hear about it. One thing I’d like to see is to make it so you can drag the mouse to aim the wall. Currently you have to click each tile, or just press and release the key to create your full wall in a straight line.
I spent 4 points into Ice Wall which I regret, which means I only put 1 point into Ice Blast. I don’t know how effective it is at higher levels, but it isn’t super useful at level 1 or 2 (it’s at level 2 thanks to the Ice Rod).
In short, max Ice Pike immediately, go for Ice Bolt next (it has a much kinder cooldown than Ice Pike so it’s worth it). From there I would recommend getting the freeze chance trait for Ice Bolt and maxing Ice Blast. If you end up going Psycokino after Cryo1 I wouldn’t worry about getting the damage traits all that much.
Psycokino.
I only have one skill for this so far but it’s by far the most damaging skill I have.
Psychic Pressure let’s you hold the button down, attacking enemies close by until your MP is all gone or you let go if the button, then it will go on cooldown. It uses up about 5% of your SP a second, but the cost actually goes down as you level it up, while the damage also goes up. To give an idea as to how strong this ability can be, I went into a boss fight solo. The boss was 5 levels above me. I applied Reflect Shield, got close and activated Psychic Pressure, and the boss was dead in less than 20 seconds, while I still had half my SP left and took zero damage.
I tested Psychic Pressure in earlier boss fights helping lower level players, and I met minimal success. Of course I was OP, but the bosses simply didn’t die as quickly. My guess is that the bosses HP scales based on the party makeup.
I intend to max Psychic Pressure first, then likely put a point into Teleport and Swap. I’ll likely max Telekinesis and leave Teleport at level 1.
I’m aiming for Chronomancer and so I don’t believe I’ll be getting many more opportunities to gain powerful boss killing abilities.
